Generally, a fishing reel, which supports the spool rotatably to a frame, has a clutch means which is coupled to transmit rotation of a handle shaft to the spool shaft, thereby winding a fishing line onto the spool, and which is disconnected to allow the spool shaft to freely rotate for casting.
A fishing rig at the end of the line, when cast, draws by its weight the line out of the spool, in which case the spool tends to rotate at speed higher than that of the drawn-out line so as to overrun and cause a backlash, resulting in that the line gets twisted or enters in a gap between the spool and the reel body. Hence, the reel generally has a brake to avoid such trouble.
The brake is usually formed as employs a centrifugal brake which provides a brake shoe in slidable contact wiith a brake drum for the braking action. Accordingly, there has been the problem in that the braking effect varies due to the intensity of friction of the brake shoe and that the braking effect cannot be adjusted from the exterior of the reel.
For the purpose of solving the above problem, a fishing reel has been proposed which employs a magnet and a metallic electric conductor, one of which is fixed to the reel body and the other of which rotates together with the spool so that an eddy current is generated by the rotating magnetic flux and according to Fleming's left-hand rule a force is imparted to the rotating member against its rotation, thereby exerting the braking action. The fixed member is made movable axially of the spool shaft with respect to the reel body and the braking effect is adjustable from the reel exterior.
This type of brake has no contact portion and is free from the aforesaid variation in the braking effect and is easy to adjust from the exterior, but the magnet or metallic conductor supported to the reel body and movable axially of the spool shaft is hard to adjust with accuracy and a large space is needed to enlarge a range of adjustment, resulting in that the reel is large-sized as a whole.